


The Naming of Cats

by bitochondria



Category: Miami Vice (TV)
Genre: (just the part where they buy a cat), (not involved in the sex though), Ambiguous Orientation Rico Tubbs, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Porn, Bisexual Sonny Crockett, Canon-Typical Behavior, Cats, Couch Cuddles, Domestic Fluff, Episode: s04e03 Death and the Lady, Fanart, Friends With Benefits, Illustrations, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, POV Third Person Limited, Period Typical Attitudes, Pet Sitting, Porn with Feelings, Possibly Unrequited Love, Self-Hatred, Self-Worth Issues, Sonny is terrified of how he feels about Rico
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:34:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28779855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitochondria/pseuds/bitochondria
Summary: Sonny takes Rico with him to pick up a kitten for Gina. Their on-again-off-again friends with benefits arrangement is already more than Sonny can handle sometimes; the quiet domesticity that comes from taking care of a helpless creature together drives him to wonder how much longer he can live with his feelings.Slightly illustrated! Super angsty! Punctuated by screaming kittens and porn, but not at the same time!(Works as a followup toprior Vice ficsas well as a standalone)
Relationships: Sonny Crockett/Ricardo Tubbs
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	The Naming of Cats

“You doing anything tonight?” Rico looked up from the manila folder he had in his hands, and shot Crockett a soft, down-turned look that, even at their desks, read a little lascivious.

Crockett felt his stomach flip a little, same as he always did when Rico’s eyes got that set to them. He glanced off to the side to avoid spending another half second thinking about the length of his partner’s eyelashes. 

"Yeah, actually,” Crockett answered. It wasn’t an excuse, not this time. Even if he made up more than his fair share of excuses these days, this one wasn’t. So he added a collegial invitation: “But you can come with." 

He could handle it, tonight. Handle the tightness in his chest. Handle the feeling that he was tumbling headlong into something he couldn’t extricate himself from. 

He closed the top drawer of his desk as Rico did the same, and sat up from his chair. 

Rico raised his eyebrows appreciatively at the suggestion of adventure. He grabbed his jacket from the hook behind his desk. “Where’re we going?”

Crockett realized he was holding his breath as he watched his friend. He breathed out quietly through his nose.

He had never been in love with a man before. 

Even under different circumstances— even if it were just some random guy, someone there was less baggage with— he wasn’t stupid enough to think he was ever going to have a serious, long term relationship with a dude. What would he do, pretend the bastard was his roomate  _ on a boat _ ? Move in with him and be back to what it was like with Caroline, running back and forth from the  _ Dance _ every time someone needed Burnett? Never let anyone at the precinct meet his significant other, ever? Never let his work and his personal life intertwine in any way ever again? There was no possible way. You just couldn’t be an undercover cop  _ and _ an undercover fag. 

He had never even entertained the idea of  _ being _ with a man, really  _ being  _ with him, long term, before. Guys were for fooling around with— if anything— not  _ relationships _ . 

But to fall in love with his goddamn  _ partner _ ? Even ignoring every issue that would be the same with dating any man, they would never be able to keep it from the rest of Vice Squad, and then they would both lose their jobs. And even if Rico were a woman, dating at work was already fraught. It fucked with your judgement. Made you make stupid decisions, lose sight of the case, behave erratically, etc, etc, whatever. They already had enough issues with keeping their friendly arrangement secret, and Crockett sure as hell had enough issues with boundaries already, too. He knew— tried not to think about it, but he knew— he’d already sell out the mission for Rico. Trying to make a  _ relationship _ out of it was just piling on kindling.

Not that he could even if he wanted to. Rico had told him a long time ago that he considered himself ‘flexibly straight’ more than anything else. He had made it clear that he was just in it for some fun with a buddy; Crockett knew someday he’d settle down, when the right girl came along. No way would he ever be interested in playing house with a closet-case. 

Crockett grinned on the way out the door, toothier and less genuine than he wanted. “We're gonna go get ourselves a kitty cat.” He stuck his sunglasses on and meandered over to the Testarossa, Rico a pace behind.

He snorted, walking fast to catch up. “What, and I get it every other Sunday and holidays?”

And there went his stomach again, rolling at the merest hint— and it wasn’t a hint, it was a  _ fucking joke _ — that Rico might see their relationship as more than just friends who got each other off sometimes. 

He waited to speak until they were both in the car, and then closed the door. “Funny. Not for us, for Gina.” 

Rico blinked puzzlement, just for a second. 

Crockett started the engine.

“‘member our little friend running the bootleg AKC?”

“Baby Izzy?”

“That’s the one.” The girl’s name was actually Aleja Alvarez; she went by Al. She was as charming and as slippery as a politician, a whiz with technology, and a whole entire walking criminal empire in the making. Crockett, frankly, kind of wanted to adopt her. 

“Well, I went to check on her the other day and she was selling kittens.” 

Rico laughed, breathy and mischievous. “Not rats dressed up like kittens or something?”

“No, nope, actual kittens.” He chuckled, breathing through his nose. “An’ there was one clingy little orange bastard I just kept thinking— ‘I know who needs you.'”

Rico glanced at him from the corners of his eyes, a crooked smile on his lips. 

Crockett’s stomach continued doing its aerobic routine. 

“What?”

“I just love that about you, man.” Rico pursed his lips slightly, looking out the windshield. He looked like he was trying not to grin. 

The L-word caused Crockett’s mouth to go dry. 

“You pretend you never listen to anyone,” Rico explained, still biting down a greater smile, “But then you go and  _ buy Gina a cat _ because she’s sad about Misty.”

Theoretically, Crockett should have been watching the road, and theoretically, he was at least glancing at it, but it was hard to keep his eyes off Rico’s face. 

“It’s just really funny,” Rico shrugged, eyes still sparkling mischief. “Like it’s a secret that you’re a good friend.” He punctuated the last two words with his voice and eyebrows, a verbal capitalization. 

Finding something about him  _ funny _ was not the same as  _ loving _ something about him. He knew Rico didn’t mean anything by it— either word. 

“Hey, pal, if I let on that I’m not as macho as I make myself out to be, I’m gonna end up being the person who has to babysit every weepy witness and drive every confused little old lady home.” Rico’s cheeks dimpled and Crockett cleared his throat. “Besides, how would it reflect on you having a partner who’s a sissy?” 

Rico let his eyes flutter shut, shaking his head slowly, but he couldn’t stop smiling. 

Crockett had tried so hard to  _ not _ be in love with Rico. To look at him like a coworker. To try to find something about him that made him too angry to keep loving him. To focus on the fact that he would never feel the same way, that loving him was toxic, that loving him meant hurting both of them.

He had pushed him away. He had snapped at him, gotten angry at him for things that weren’t his fault, become withdrawn and secretive. He had thrown himself at every woman who looked at him. 

Sometimes he wondered if he would’ve seen what was coming with Theresa or Christine if he hadn’t been fighting so hard to make each of them slot neatly into his life the way he had wanted them to. If he hadn’t been so desperate to have what was between them mean something serious, real. Real enough that he could just forget his feelings for his partner— realize it had been a passing fancy all along. 

He kept seeing a glimpse of himself reflected in women’s eyes. 

A version of his life where he could hold on to some tiny bit of normalcy.

Where at least if he was falling apart at the seams, he could go home to a loving wife— god, maybe even kids again— and get stitched back up.

A version of himself where he wasn’t starting to feel like he was playing Burnett full time.

Where Rico didn’t have to play his conscience and his nursemaid on top of being his friend and partner. Where Rico could be a little happier, too. 

He turned left at the light, glancing too-briefly in the mirror.

For the time being at least, he had given up on the pushing-away bit— saw what it had been doing to Rico— wasn’t gonna ruin their actual friendship over his awful little crush— but he still held out hope that the right woman would come along and make it all a moot point. He and Rico could just be partners, buddies who did double-dates and got together for backyard barbecues sometimes. He could stop mourning an imagined life of coffee in bed and goodnight kisses with his best friend. 

“You okay?” Rico gave him an evaluative look. “Lookin’ a little grim for a kitten pick-up.”

His assessment made Crockett snort. “Just thinking about the logistics. Wondering if I have enough canned tuna to keep the little bugger alive until we get it to Gina,” he lied. Rico’s questioning of his mental state had become more frequent and less tentative recently, a fact which both worried and also charmed Crockett. Whenever his partner inquired after his well-being, he felt a surge of warmth and affection followed swiftly by a crashing wave of annoyance and defensiveness. He liked that Rico cared about him, but he sure as hell didn’t like that he appeared to  _ need _ said care.

“Do you have a place for it to sleep?” Rico pursed his lips slightly, brow furrowing. “Bowls? Litterbox?”

Crockett scratched at his temple. “It’s only for a night.”

“So what,” Rico half-grinned, oozing judgement, “You’re gonna tell it to hold it for a few hours?”

Crockett made a grumbling sound in the back of his throat. 

A question, posed as a statement, punctuated with an upward quirk of the eyebrows and a mischievous grin: “You really didn’t think this through, did you.” 

“We’ll stop somewhere.” 

Rico laughed, breathy and quiet. He leaned his head back against the headrest and smiled wide, eyes closed. 

Sonny ached to touch him. 

He kept his eyes pinned to the road and, instead, pulled into the first shopping center on the right hand side. He parked, far from any other cars at the back of the lot, and turned the car off. 

Opening one eye, Rico looked around. He didn’t unbuckle his belt. “Sonny there’s a closed ComputerLand, a gas station, a drug store, and a  _ fabric store _ here, where do you think you’re gonna get a litterbox?”

Crockett opened the door and stepped out. “Eckerd’ll have something, right?”

Tubbs appeared to sigh inaudibly, but followed. 

Eckerd did not, in fact, have litterboxes, but Crockett found a dusty bag of litter and a box of Fish Ahoy. Rico teasingly suggested he buy a disposable aluminum roasting pan to sub for the actual box; Sonny took him up on it. There were bowls on the  _ Dance _ , so now all they needed was the cat.

Sonny tossed their bounty behind him, into the tiny carpeted space occupied by neither seat back nor engine, and they shot off to Al’s. He had told her ahead of time that he’d be coming by for the Little Orange Bastard, so when they pulled up, the window of her apartment opened. She leaned out and waved.

“The Prodigal Sonny returns,” she trilled, gesturing broadly, “To pick up his fatted cat.” 

Rico glanced off to the side, hand coming up to his mouth. He laughed silently, shoulders shaking. 

Crockett put his hands on his hips and sighed. “Better not be, kiddo, we ain’t gonna eat the little bugger.”

Al leaned her chin on her crossed arms, mussed up curls a halo around her head. 

“You gonna let us in, or you gonna toss the cat down?”

“Hey, man, I’m just enjoying this moment of power, y’know?” Her cadence was such that she sounded about as much like a west-coast surf shop proprietor as she did a fifteen year old Cubana. 

Crockett shrugged. “Alright, Rico, pet store it is.” 

Al blew air between her lips, an incredulous blow-off. “Three times as much for half the quality.” She pushed herself up on the windowsill and gestured toward Rico with her chin. “What about you? You wanna buy a cat?”

Rico looked down with a smile, palms out in play-along supplication. “I’m just here with him.”

“Alvarez, will you let me come get my cat, please?”

Al ignored him, addressing Tubbs instead. “He’s kind of a bummer, isn’t he?” 

“He’s alright,” Tubbs laughed, glancing saucily at Crockett. “Just a little touchy about getting bossed around by kids.”

At the same time, Crockett and Al protested this assessment— he wasn’t ‘touchy,’ she wasn’t a ‘kid.’ Tubbs bit his lip and jammed his hands in his pockets.

Crockett sighed, kicking at the pebbles on the cracked asphalt with the rubber toe of his shoe. “Alvarez, do I gotta get child services down here, or are you gonna sell me a goddamn kitten?”

Al rolled her eyes and disappeared from the window, and then reappeared at the door a moment later. She had a bit of a Duran Duran thing going on— skinny legs in peg-leg slacks, a suit-jacket that made her narrow shoulders look a little wider, a barely-tied thin black tie around her neck. Very New Wave, or whatever it was they were calling pretty-boy bands these days. She pushed her unruly hair back behind her ears and beckoned. “Come on in.”

Crockett and Tubbs followed Al into her apartment, whereupon they were greeted by a pair of tail-wagging borzois and the sleepy wave of a second teenager, upside down on a couch covered in computer parts. When they had initially (unintentionally) busted her, there had been some inquiries as to who actually owned this apartment, and whether or not Miss Alvarez had any kind of adult supervision. Her aunt, she claimed, owned the space, but worked multiple jobs and kept strange hours. Crockett had yet to see this alleged aunt, but the paperwork lined up, the bills seemed to be getting paid, and Al had never had any issues with truancy officers or anything. He didn’t particularly like the idea that she was living on her own, but in the grand scheme of things, she could be doing a lot worse. Hoping to curtail any of her criminal enterprises before they became jailable offenses, Crockett checked in from time to time. She seemed vaguely amused by him, which was better than annoyed. 

Al ignored the dogs and her presumed compatriot and brought Crockett and Tubbs into the kitchen half of the living room. Under what might have been a kitchen table in a past life, but which now held four computers and a gently whirring printer, a pen containing about half a dozen kittens was set up. 

Tubbs crouched down and wiggled his fingers through the bars, muttering quiet and affectionate nonsense to the feline prisoners within. Crockett felt his face run a little warm. His way with little creatures— so naturally warm and gentle— always put Sonny at sea. 

“You still want the little orange one?” 

Crockett nodded, eyes snapping from Rico to Al. “Yeah, that’s the one.” 

Uninvited, Rico reached in and picked up the kitten Crockett had earmarked for Gina. It wrapped its paws around his wrist almost immediately, meowing a scratchy sort of  _ yeeehn  _ noise. “This fella?”

“I think so. You like ‘im?”

Rico held the clinging kitten up close to his face, like he was inspecting counterfeit cash. He pet its cheek, the back of one finger beneath its ear. It  _ myeh _ ’d and pressed its face into Rico’s hand. 

He grinned. “He’s like velcro.” He scritched the kitten again, this time on the other side. It smushed its face against him a second time. “What a good little gremlin.” 

“Alright,” Al nodded, bottom lip jutted out in an appraising pout. “I’ll get the paperwork and you two can enjoy your new friend.” She ducked almost noiselessly into a darkened bedroom. Crockett couldn’t imagine what kind of phony paperwork he was about to receive, but he wasn’t going to press the issue.

He reached over and palmed the kitten’s head, and Tubbs smiled at him like a proud papa. Very quietly, presumably in the hopes of not being labeled a mark, Tubbs admitted, “I kinda want one.” 

Still rhythmically stroking the cat between the ears, Crockett started to respond, but got cut off.

“Raising a pet together’s kind of a big deal, y’know?” Al had a manila folder full of documents in one hand and a Polaroid camera in the other. “The kind of thing you might want to mark with a commemorative photo— we do packages, if you’re interested.” 

Well, the girl sure knew how to hustle. 

Crockett squinted for a second before full understanding dawned. “Hey, hey, no need to go calling Anita Bryant, it’s not me an’ Rico who’re adopting this guy.” He crossed his arms, shoulders tightening. “Felix here’s for our friend— lady friend— not us.” 

“Okay,” Al shrugged, seemingly unconcerned by any non-traditional family structure this cat might be entering into, “Do you think she’d want a photo package?”

Tubbs snorted, supporting the kitten against his neck and shoulder with one hand. “I think we’re good, Miss Alvarez.” 

“Well, you know where I live if you change your mind.” She opened the manila folder onto the kitchen counter and had Crockett sign a number of documents he didn’t bother to read. He was hardly going to be suing a child if something went wrong with the cat, and any binding agreement written up by a fifteen year old wasn’t legal anyway. Crockett paid, he and Tubbs both shook Al’s hand, and after declining a host of goods and services— computer repair, dogs, notary work— they got back in the Testarossa.

Al had given them a cardboard box for Little Orange Bastard, but Tubbs held on to him as they started to drive. He was going to be absolutely covered in cat hair, Crockett sighed internally, as was the car. 

Flipping through the documents Crockett had declined to read with one hand, cat in the other, Rico started laughing. 

“What?”

“Apparently our little friend here is feline nobility. This says he’s from a long line of prize-winning show cats.” 

Crockett glanced at the kitten, and Rico’s grin. “Impressive. Didn’t know they had a category for orange tabbies.” 

Rico wiggled one of the documents above the Prince of Tabbies’ head, and it attacked it with impotent kittenish rage. Continuously pulling the paper out of the kitten’s reach, Rico alternately cooed and cackled, muttering inanity like ‘are you royalty?’ and ‘lookit you, you little champion.’ 

Crockett attempted to reshape the gooey feeling in his chest into a joke. 

“Y’know, they say women go bananas for men who’re good with animals. So why aren’t you beating ladies off with a stick, T.S.?”

Rico raised his eyebrows suggestively, eyeteeth exposed on one side. “Who says I’m not?”

Eyes snapping back to the road, Crockett breathed out silently through his nose.  _ Ask a self-flagellating question… _

He pivoted.

“You really want one?”

Still smiling impishly, he answered Crockett’s question with a question. “A cat, or a woman?”

Something between panic and outright pain rose in Crockett’s throat. He made a grumbling sound of annoyance, and rolled his eyes performatively. 

Rico looked at him sideways, smile dissolving into neutrality. Crockett kicked himself for being so goddamn obvious.

“Not really,” Rico answered, tone unreadable.

Crockett continued kicking himself, now for trying to read something into a completely innocuous statement. 

No more women talk. 

“You grow up with animals?” 

Rico shook his head. “Nah. The refrain was always ‘animals belong outside.’” He palmed Little Orange Bastard’s head, almost squishing it as he pet from nose to tail. The kitten seemed pleased with this. “One of my aunties had this  _ huge _ brown monster, though, like a— a thirty-pound bowling ball of a cat. Giant scruffy asshole she got to catch mice but who ended up just sleeping sprawled next to the radiator most of the time. Ma said he was ‘proof positive’ that pets were a scam.” He pursed his lips slightly, contemplative. “I  _ loved _ that cat.” Touching the kitten’s cheeks, he smiled. “I’d carry him around from room to room and he’d just hang like an angry sack of flour, waiting for me to go home.” 

The image of a pint-sized Rico toddling around with an enormous perturbed cat kind of made Sonny want to tell him to just keep the kitten. Just too damn cute. 

“You?” 

“Dogs,” Sonny nodded. “Turtles. Frogs and toads I kidnapped from the great outdoors. There was a cat for a while but I think everyone in my neighborhood thought he was theirs, everyone fed ‘im.” He licked his lips, watching for traffic at a four-way stop. “I don’t think I ever actually learned to trust again after my childhood beagle died.”

There was a moment before Rico started laughing, a beat before he figured out that Sonny was joking. When everything clicked into place, he bent halfway over, biting the inside of his lip.

The corners of Sonny’s eyes crinkled. “The root of all my trauma, really.”

“So the real reason you have an alligator is that they live longer than dogs, huh.”

“Bingo, you got it.” Sonny pulled into his parking spot. “Speaking of Elvis, maybe put the kitten in the box. He’s gonna think we brought him a snack.”

They snuck Gina’s new friend aboard the  _ Dance _ , Rico carefully sidestepping Elvis as Crockett grabbed him some consolation fish. 

“Wonder if he’s jealous,” Sonny muttered, kicking his shoes off and heading into the kitchen to find a bowl. 

Rico set the box of cat down on the table along with the food and the litter, and started unpeeling the sticker from the roasting pan. 

“Well, you almost never cuddle him,” he mused, tearing the corner of the litter bag. “I’d be jealous.”

Sonny snorted, reaching over Rico’s shoulder for the box of food. “Hey, you wanna go give Elvis a snuggle, no one’s stopping you, pal.” He filled one small bowl with water and another with kibble, and then put them on the kitchen floor.

“Are you just gonna let Sonny Jr. roam free tonight?”

“Sonny J— we are not naming him Sonny Junior.” 

Rico shrugged, lifting the prisoner from his cardboard box. “Looks more like you than me.” He shot Sonny a puckish glance. “Got that beach-blonde thing goin’ on.” 

Sonny rolled his eyes. “Just put him down.”

Rico held on. “Do you have any idea if he’s litter-trained?”

“Alvarez said all they were.” As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he realized that that promise might be about as faulty as Sonny Jr.’s pedigree. “Maybe we can box him into the kitchen or something.”

“I think your furniture will thank you for that.”

They gathered up cardboard, tool and tackle boxes, books— whatever they could find to make a kitten-safe wall around the kitchen. Rico deposited the cat on the other side of the wall, casually poured himself a glass of juice from Sonny’s fridge, and flopped down on the couch, one leg tucked up under him. Sonny grabbed a beer and joined him. 

Head tilted back against the headrest, Sonny brought the bottle to his lips and drank. He swallowed and sighed, tipping his face toward Rico, eyes on his ears and neck and eyelashes, blinking with sleepy slowness. Rico returned the look with the barest of smiles and a soft blink of his own, and Sonny’s heart was a misfiring cylinder in a shoddy engine block. 

If he were being honest with himself— something he tried to be as infrequently as possible— what he wanted to do was knock Rico’s juice out of his hand and dive head first between his thighs, and possibly live there for the rest of his life. He wanted to crush the bridge of his nose into the curls tracing Rico’s stomach, to kiss him all over his chest and hips and thighs, to tell him he would give it all up for him if he just asked, to become a tangle of limbs pressed together, hot and sweet and gasping in the darkness of his bedroom. 

So what he said was, “You really taking night classes?”

The corners of Rico’s mouth crinkled, visible even though the beard. “Yeah.” He nodded, and sipped his drink through a smile.

“... _ when _ ?”

“Right now it’s only every other week. Lotta reading, though.” 

“What subject?”

“Well, I'm not really focusing on any one thing yet,” he nodded, more to himself than to Sonny, “but if I can manage to eke out a little more free time I want to take some law classes.”

What Sonny wanted to say was this, a startled, desperate: “You're not leaving me, are you?”

What Sonny actually said was, with a forced trill of laughter in his voice: “You planning on jumping ship, starting a law firm or something?”

Rico paused, almost longer than was comfortable. His lips scrunched up to one side, and he looked off to the right, out the window. “You can't work vice forever, partner.” He turned back to Sonny, looking like a prophet. “If it doesn't—” 

A sudden crash, cardboard and metal and wood, interrupted his explanation, and a small cat came tumbling out of the kitchen, unclear on whether it was experiencing victory or humiliation. The Little Orange Bastard stood at the foot of the couch and yowled. 

“You might want to shut him in the bathroom tonight while you’re sleeping,” Tubbs suggested, and then quietly sipped his drink. 

“Noted,” Sonny scowled. He reached down and scooped the escapee with one hand. “C’mere, monkey.” He wiggled his fingertips against the kitten’s round white belly, and it squirmed and batted at him. “He really is a cute little bastard, isn’t he?” He plopped the kitten into his lap and let it attack his sleeves.

Rico leaned over and brushed the backs of his fingers against the kitten’s face. “What made you pick this one?”

Sonny looked down at its fuzzy orange face, brown eyes wide and pupils dilated. He touched the tip of his finger to its nose.

“Something about him just said ‘Gina’ to me.” He shrugged. He felt his mouth tilt up involuntarily on one side. “The right mixture of sweet and…” He hesitated, and then said it anyway, “ _ sassy _ , I guess.”

Rico sipped his juice.

“You really do love her, don’t you?”

Sonny pursed his lips, making a sort of squeaking click as he pulled air through his front teeth. “Yes,” he admitted. “But sleeping together wasn’t…” He tilted his head to the side slightly, watching Little Orange Bastard place a tentative paw onto the couch. He restarted his train of thought. “Not that kind of love.” He shrugged, very slightly.

Little Orange Bastard hopped off his lap and stalked towards Rico.

The way Rico looked at him— and god, maybe he was just imagining things, it was just for a split second— made him think, cold horror blooming in his chest, that phrasing it that way might have tipped his hand. If he shouldn’t have slept with Gina because she was only a friend, what did that say about his behavior with Rico? 

But the moment of sharp appraisal— or the moment of absolutely nothing at all, a misread twitch of the eyes— dissolved as quickly as Sonny had caught it, and Rico gulped the rest of his drink down with a smile.

Little Orange Bastard settled onto his lap, apparently more comfortable with the man who safely smuggled him past an alligator than the one who kept calling him names. Nonetheless, Sonny reached over and petted its head.

“So how are you presenting Sonny Jr. to Gina, you think?”

Sonny grinned. “I’m going to hide him.”

Rico looked incredulous. “What if she doesn’t find him?”

“I’ll make sure she does.” 

“Castillo’s gonna be pissed if you bring a cat to the precinct.” Rico bent carefully over the kitten and Sonny’s hand to place his empty glass on the edge of the table.

Unable to answer with a mouthful of beer, Sonny swallowed. “That’s half the fun.”

Rico chuckled, a little high-pitched, like he was getting sleepy. Kitten petting syndrome, probably. 

Sonny watched him, lazily flicking his index finger through orange fur. Barely petting. His eyelashes swept low over his eyes. If someone had asked him a few years back if he would have ever found a man with a beard  _ beautiful _ , he’d have answered no. (Or, more realistically, he would have blown up and stormed out for implying he was queer, but that wasn’t relevant to this thought experiment.) But Rico really was beautiful. Like a classical bust, but with unbelievable eyelashes and mischievous hazel eyes. 

He found himself thinking about night school again. 

Thinking about Rico leaving him.

He smeared condensation off the neck of his beer bottle with his thumb. “You really wanna be a lawyer?” 

“What?” Rico looked legitimately confused, and then his brows unfurrowed and he made a face halfway between a smile and an apology. “I was thinking more like criminal profiler or PI, but hell, who knows.” He laughed, eyes closing with a sticky, languorous blink. “Maybe I’ll take some history classes and indulge whatever the hell that weird roleplay fantasy of yours is.”

Sonny snorted. “I’m never gonna live that down, huh?”

Rico looked at him a little crooked, and a lot affectionately. 

“Hey, move your beer.”

“What?”

“Hold it up for a sec.”

“Okay,” Sonny acquiesced, lifting his beer off his leg and holding it up in the air. 

Palming the kitten’s back, Rico tipped abruptly to his left, swinging his legs up over the arm of the couch, and landing his head squarely in Sonny’s lap. He draped one arm over Sonny’s leg, and soothed Little Orange Bastard with the other. 

Sonny felt himself go red from the tips of his ears to halfway down his chest. 

They had fucked probably, fifty, a hundred times, but somehow this felt like a far greater transgression. Rico looked up at him from his lap, seemingly quite content.

Without letting himself overthink it, Sonny brushed the backs of his fingers against Rico’s cheek. “Taking lessons from the cat?”

Rico’s eyes were soft and slightly blurry. If Sonny didn’t know better, he’d think he was a little tipsy. He ignored Sonny’s crack about the cat, and instead returned to their previous topic.

“You should come with me,” he suggested, light and casual. 

Sonny almost laughed. “To night classes?” 

“Yeah,” Rico nodded. “Why not?”

“Spitball-shooting dunce like me?” He shook his head theatrically. “I’d be in the principal’s office before I turned in my first paper.”

“Sonny, there’s no night school principal.” Rico’s smirk was a little reproachful. “And you’re not a dunce.”

“The only two things I’ve ever been any good at are playing football and being a cop,” Sonny insisted, looking at the mouth of his beer bottle. “What the hell would I do as a civilian, give piano lessons?”

Rico was silent for a moment, his eyebrows a hard line across his forehead. He looked at the kitten, blinking twice, and breathed out audibly through his nose. Not quite a sigh, but a relative. His eyes returned to Sonny, looking from upside down. 

He joked, but he wasn’t smiling. “You could apply to wrangle the crocodilians at the zoo.” 

If that was the best he could come up with, Sonny really  _ was _ fucked. 

He changed the topic. 

“Hey, everything’s all cleared up with Padre Dinero and the Holy Order of Hypocrites?”

Rico squinted and wheezed with laughter. “Yeah, I’m square. Sat down with the DA the other day and hammered everything out. All charges are dropped, record’s expunged.”

“What a fucking nightmare,” Sonny sighed, brushing the tip of Little Orange Bastard’s ear with his thumb. 

“You don’t know the half of it, partner.” Rico scoffed, blinking rapidly. He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t need to. 

Sonny leaned his head to the side and slowly searched the planes of Rico’s face. He might be a spitball-shooting dunce, but he wasn’t so ignorant he couldn’t catch what his partner was throwing.

It wasn’t that exactly that he ever  _ forgot _ Rico was Black, but he wasn’t all that great at remembering that often that meant the rules applied to him differently. He defaulted to thinking of Rico as a cop before he was a Black man— a blindspot he had only recently started to understand. Rico never really brought it up; he’d gesture vaguely in the direction of racism and hoped Sonny would piece it together on his own. Sonny knew he didn’t always manage to fill in all the blanks. 

Guilt squirmed around like eels in his belly. 

Without forethought, he leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. 

God almighty he loved him. Like a knife between his ribs, he loved him. Like wanting another hit of coke, he loved him. Like acid eating away at every shield he’d ever erected, he loved him. 

The kiss elicited a breathy chuckle and a soft smile. Rico’s head was tilted back, pressed warm against Sonny’s thigh. 

Sonny sipped his beer instead of saying something stupid.

When he’d had a chance to collect himself, he said, “Well, I’m glad.” 

Rico nodded, far more jovial than Sonny felt he’d be in the same position. “Me too.”

Silence, bordered by quiet purring, settled between them.

It scared Sonny. It was warm, comfortable silence. The kind of silence that, in a movie, would precede a swelling of violins, a desperate embrace, and an eleventh-hour confession of love, followed swiftly by credits and a brainless assumption that these people wouldn’t end up divorced in a year. If he breathlessly clasped Rico and muttered  _ I love you I love you I’ve always loved you _ against his skin, there would most certainly be a credits roll, because their relationship— their friendship— would be over. 

So instead, Sonny purposefully said something stupid.

“I’d visit you in prison, you know.”

Rico snorted and laughed a high-pitched, wheezy laugh, like an asthmatic grandpa leering at an ample-bosomed nurse. 

“I don’t think they’d let you in for conjugals.” He fairly sparkled at his own joke, cheeks dimpled and eyes crinkling at the corners. 

“You don’t think?” Their faces were very close, looking at one another from almost upside down. 

“Not for all the contraband cigarettes in Dade County.”

“What if I brought some girls with me? Fine liquors?”

Almost nose-to-nose now, Sonny could feel the dense curls on Rico’s chin brush against his face as he spoke. 

“I think we’re talking heavy duty bribery here, Sonny. You’ll end up tossed in there yourself.”

“Well, least then we can start a…” He paused, trying to think of something ridiculous. “Prison glee club together.”

Sonny touched his lips to Rico’s, feeling him smile as their mouths met. 

When they parted, Rico reached up and touched Sonny’s cheek. 

“So… you wanna fuck me?” He raised his eyebrows like he was asking if Sonny wanted some pretzels, but his voice was low and husky and  _ hot _ as all hell.

Sonny’s dick sprang to life instantaneously. 

He made a very stupid face, eyes wide, one cheek puffed out like a damn pufferfish.

“Don’t have to ask me twice,” he grinned.

Rico sat halfway up, holding the kitten still against his body. “Let’s move Sonny Jr., then.”

They scrambled to get the cat and its accoutrements into the bow bathroom, shared a moment of impatient waiting by the stern bathroom door— they both agreed fucking with hands covered in cat dander was deeply unsexy— and then Rico was on his back on Sonny’s bed, undoing the knot in his tie.

Sonny was more of a bottom by nature, but he enjoyed the occasional bit of role reversal. He enjoyed  _ especially _ the way Rico’s breathing got a little shaky when he was pinned against the sheets. He was always so  _ cool _ — getting to see him thaw was easily worth the price of entry. 

He threw his own shirt off over his head and unbuckled his belt, his pants following his shirt onto the floor. Rico was still unbuttoning his shirt; Sonny knelt on the floor between his dangling legs and helped with his belt. Why he insisted on wearing so many layers every damn day remained an enigma, though Sonny suspected it came from the same place as his desire to drive a damn antique. The kind of man who wore a four-in-hand knot and a collar bar had probably been the kind of kid who hoped he would grow up to tour with the Rat Pack. 

Pants now down around Rico’s ankles, Sonny pulled at the waistband of his briefs— lowrise, green, cute as all get out— and pressed his lips to his partner’s cock. 

“ _ Jesus _ ,” Rico gasped, still fucking around with his buttons. 

“Get that damn shirt off before I pull it off,” Sonny muttered, hand tight around Rico’s dick, cheek and lips and the tip of his tongue brushing against it in turn. 

Back pinned to the bed, this was a harder order to follow than perhaps it should have been. Rico wriggled side to side to release one arm and then the other, Sonny’s hands and mouth all over him. He tossed the offending garment over Sonny’s head and started working on his undershirt. 

Meanwhile, Sonny wrapped his lips around the head of Rico’s erection, tongue stiff down its length as he brought his mouth down. Rico bucked and gasped, hands still around the hem of his shirt, trying desperately to pull it over his head. Sonny took pity and released his grip on Rico’s left hipbone, letting him sit up enough to get it off. 

Rico’s hands were immediately in his hair, fingers tangled, thumbs rubbing circles on his skin in time with the grinding of his hips. 

Sonny had kind of gathered that Rico preferred his hair longer; on the one hand, it was hot as all hell when, fingers tangled in the waves at the back of his neck, Rico’s grip got a little too tight just before he came. On the other hand, it did little to dispel his belief that Rico was generally happier with a woman in his arms— Sonny got away with his position as frequent bedmate by dint of being kind of  _ pretty _ .

Well. He was here now. 

Rico’s head was tilted back against the bed, lips slightly parted as Sonny sucked him off. He thrust against Sonny’s tongue, knowing by this point in their dalliance that Sonny was more than capable of handling the excited grinding. The first few times they had fucked, he had been cautious, restrained— hands tight in the sheets as Sonny touched him. Sonny had been the same way. Sometimes he still was. The idea that his enthusiasm might ever possibly read like  _ love _ terrified him. Rico had no such compunctions, clearly.

Sonny was fine with that. He ran his tongue down the length of Rico’s cock, stopping near the base to nibble a bit on the side as he gently cupped and massaged his balls. 

“Sonny,” he gasped, an edge of laughter to his voice, “I’m gonna cum before you even get your briefs off if you keep this up.”

“Would that be so bad?” Sonny teased, lips brushing Rico’s thigh. 

He wanted to fuck him, of course. But he also knew that maintaining that line of feigned professionalism was easier when he stuck to blowjobs and handies. You weren’t going to accidentally whisper ‘I love you’ with a dick in your mouth. 

“I’m in the mood for a little more than that,” Rico half-glared, although glassy and flushed the effect was hardly menacing. His downturned eyebrows flattened back to neutral, and his glare softened to a gaze, shimmering with heat. With a practiced hand, he reached into Sonny’s bedside drawer and pinched a condom between his fore and middle fingers, like a business card. This he handed to Sonny while fishing in the drawer once again. 

Sonny continued dragging his lips across Rico’s dick, motivated to annoy him as much as arouse. 

“ _ Sonny _ ,” Rico admonished through gritted teeth, almost laughing. He slammed the drawer shut and practically threw the lube at his head. 

Grinning, relevant items in hand, Sonny stood up from the end of the bed and gestured for Rico to move back. “Scooch.” 

“Sometimes,” Rico shook his head, obliging anyway, “I wonder why we do this.”

He was obviously joking, but the knife still twisted. That same question scratched away at the corners of his thoughts every time they touched. 

Sonny tried to ignore the words and just  _ look _ at his partner: Rico’s smile, quirked up to one side, his eyes, half-lidded, his chest and his belly, dark and smooth and blanketed with curly black fuzz. He took a deep breath and pulled his briefs off, tossing them on the floor with his clothes, and then climbed up onto the bed. He leaned in and kissed Rico right below his navel.

Rico pushed the hair from Sonny’s face, and Sonny made himself grin up at him. He took Rico’s right leg from the back of the thigh, spreading him, and kissed the inside of his leg. He rested his calf on his shoulder.

Kneeling between his legs, Sonny screwed off the cap of the lubricant gel and squeezed some onto his fingertips. 

“Lift your hips,” he directed, making a very stupid ‘yeah, keep backing into the space, almost there’ kind of gesture. Nothing sexier than helping someone park their car, right? 

Rico either didn’t notice this bit of awkwardness or didn’t care; he tilted his butt upwards and laid his shoulders back flat on the bed. 

Reaching around Rico’s leg, Sonny ghosted his thumb across the head of his cock while rubbing the tips of his fingers on the other hand against the cleft of his ass. Index and middle finger together, he traced a line of lube from just below his asshole up to the base of his cock below his balls and back again. With his fingers positioned in the cleft of Rico’s ass, ready to catch any escaping gel, he squeezed more lubricant out onto Rico’s skin, just above his entrance. As the lube slid down he slid his fingers up, his other hand just barely grazing Rico’s straining erection, and his partner gasped. 

With a rumble in his voice, Sonny teased, “I haven’t even gotten in there yet, man, cool your jets.” 

Without lifting his head, Rico flipped him off. 

Sonny cackled. 

“Like you’re not Mr. Fake Stoic when you’re in the same position,” Rico teased in return, “Bitin’ your lip and tryin’ to be quiet when you’re blushing so hot I could roast marshmallows over your face.” 

The aforementioned blush spread over Sonny’s skin in an instant. You couldn’t keep a lot of secrets when you fucked a detective. 

“Alright, pal, that’s it,” he growled, trying to somehow sound more irritated than embarrassed. 

“What’s ‘ _ it _ ’?” Rico laughed, peering at Sonny from over his nose. “You gonna kick me out or something?”

“No,” Sonny retorted, pushing one fingertip against and into the tightness of Rico’s ass. He slid out, gathered more lubricant, and repeated the motion. “I’m gonna fuck your brains out.” 

Rico whistled. “Sonny-baby, that is some next level reverse psychology you got going on there. ‘Oh no! Not exactly what I asked you to do!’” His teasing was undermined somewhat by the increasing waver in his voice. 

Sonny slid his other finger inside, sooner than he usually would have. He squeezed more lubricant onto the underside of his digits and pushed them deeper inside his partner, sliding lube deeper into his hole. He kept this up for a little while, two fingers slipping in and out while Rico breathed rough and gravelly and his cock strained against the air. 

Rico’s hand hovered towards his erection and Sonny grabbed him by the wrist. 

“Hey, buddy, if you’re gonna make fun of me, you don’t get to touch.” 

He arced his fingers slightly as he thrust them inside this time, causing Rico’s adam’s apple to bob with a precipitous swallow. His cock twitched, and watching this, Sonny found himself feeling just about as desperate for heat and friction as Rico. As much fun as it was to watch him get flustered, this little game they were playing had a distinct expiration date. 

He knew he didn’t actually need to hold Rico’s wrist to keep him from touching himself, and he had another free hand he could use besides, but he was getting kind of a kick out of pretending, and Rico was clearly just as happy to play along. 

Sonny pulled his fingers out and rubbed more lube onto them, smearing his ring finger with the pad of his thumb. He didn’t jump right to sliding all three fingers inside him, but instead continued fucking him with two, sliding in straight on the twos or threes, hooking upwards on an occasional, unpredictable syncopated beat. 

“Can I touch my dick yet?” Rico questioned, voice tight, feigning annoyance. Precum was beading on the tip of his erection.

“Nope,” Sonny answered, feigning cool. He kind of just wanted to tug himself to conclusion with his fingers inside his friend, watching him grind and squirm. 

He pushed a third finger inside and Rico made a noise that went right to his cock. 

“Are you,” a gasp punctuated his words, “Kidding me?” 

“Oh yeah,” Sonny growled, “I’m the king of comedy.” 

“Y’know, that was a fucked up movie,” Rico mused, the clenching of his thighs wildly at odds with his words. 

Sonny couldn’t help but laugh, a toothy, high pitched giggle that turned into a whine. He caught Rico’s eyes and they both laughed, all the tension they’d been building up dissipating in an instant. 

When things had been good, back before life with Vice had fucked it all to hell, he and Caroline had cracked each other up like this during sex all the time. Always, always, in the midst of their laughter, he had pressed his face into her skin and muttered,  _ ‘I love you, I love you so goddamn much.’ _ He wanted desperately to do the same now. To throw everything away and tell Rico that that’s how much he meant to him. 

Instead, he asked, “How’d you feel about  _ New York, New York _ ?” 

Rico brought his knuckles to his mouth, eyes squinted shut as he wheezed with laughter. Sonny could feel him clenching around his fingers as he laughed, and his need to be inside his friend reached a new level of urgency.

“Too damn long, but I dug the theme.”

Sonny pulled his fingers out and opened the condom with his teeth. After pulling it down over his cock, he palmed himself, sliding lube up and down its length. He gave the tube of gel one last squeeze over the head, and spread that over the sheath as well.

“Tell me, Rico, did you have a poster of Sinatra up in your bedroom as a kid?” 

Rico chuckled with genuine, tickled confusion. “What?”

“Nothing.” Sonny hoisted Rico’s ass up and positioned himself between his legs, holding his cock steady in his hand. 

“I did have  _ A Man Called Adam _ poster— Frank Sinatra  _ Jr. _ was in that one.” There was a pause, and Rico tilted his head to the side slightly. “So-so flick, but the poster was groovy.” 

Sonny snorted, and touched the tip of his erection to Rico’s asshole. “Was Sammy Davis in that?”

Rico nodded, his fingertips brushing Sonny’s cheek. 

Sonny awarded himself a point.  _ Rat Pack wannabe. _

“Y’know, this is kind of a weird conversation to be having right now?” Rico’s voice hitched as Sonny pressed himself a fraction of an inch inside. 

“Y’think?” Sonny pushed in deeper, the slight catch of his head past the tightness of the entrance sending lightning up his thighs and into his belly. Halfway inside him, he squeezed Rico’s ass, simultaneously massaging and spreading. Rico made a stifled moan, his stomach clenching. Sonny slid deeper inside, the heat of him all-encompassing. The grip around the base of his cock was keeping him almost painfully hard; he resisted the urge to pull Rico up onto him by the hips and just go to town. Instead, he slid most of the way back out, and then pushed gently back in, nice and slow, getting Rico used to the friction and the fullness. 

Rico was watching all of this— or perhaps, more accurately, watching Sonny’s face as all this was happening, lips parted, eyes glassy. When Sonny caught his eye, he reached up and ran his fingers through the hair at Sonny’s temple. He smiled, soft and bleary, and Sonny involuntarily muttered, ‘ _ fuck _ .’ Rico raised his eyebrows suggestively, and Sonny scrunched his face up, trying not to break into laughter balls-deep in his best friend’s ass. 

“You doin’ okay?” 

“I’ve been worse,” Rico assessed, voice like velvet. Sonny could feel him purposefully clench his pelvic muscles around his cock, and he had to close his eyes not to sputter something dopey again. “You?”

“Can’t complain,” he muttered, breathy. He pulled back out to the head, just squeezing the ridge past the tightest part of Rico’s hole, and then pushed back in about a half inch. He teased this way— short, quick thrusts right at the entrance— until he realized he wasn’t going to last long himself if he kept it up. He thrust all the way inside in one long stroke, and Rico wrapped his legs around his back, as if to keep him in there. He leaned down and kissed Rico’s throat, mouth open, and then ran the tip of his tongue down to his clavicle, and then kissed there, too. Rico practically bucked against him. 

He suctioned his mouth to Rico’s skin, alternating sweeps of his tongue with sucking and grazing with his teeth. There was a possibility Rico might have a mark in the morning, but it was far enough down that it would only be noticeable if he wore his shirt open. Ties were good for  _ something _ . 

As he kissed Rico’s neck and shoulders, he got into a cautious rhythm, sliding in and out just enough to keep Rico a little breathy and shuddery. As he started getting more worked up— when the shuddering started to feel more like tremors, and the breathing started to sound more like moans— Sonny suddenly realized Rico had been alternating the whole time between gripping the sheets and Sonny’s hair. The realization that he was still waiting to touch his cock— and god, he was making those noises anyway— made the base of Sonny’s cock clench involuntarily. He knew the moment he put his hand on Rico’s dick, he’d spill, and he’d follow a half-second behind. 

“C’mere,” he ordered, useless with words at this particular juncture, and put his hands on the back of Rico’s ribs. He pulled upwards from just beneath the shoulder blades; luckily, Rico quickly figured out what it was Sonny wanted, and pushed himself up from the bed.

Sonny hoisted Rico up onto his lap, squeezing him tight around the middle and shoulders, and now, nose to nose, kissed him hard. Rico groaned, soft but needy, against his mouth. The tip of his tongue flickered against the tip of Rico’s, and he began thrusting anew, the intense tightness from earlier giving way to soft heat as his body relaxed. 

Tongue still pressed firmly into his mouth, Sonny palmed Rico’s cock. Immediately Rico was thrusting almost frantically into his hand, his ass grinding in time up and down Sonny’s length, and Sonny was trying not to moan too obviously as his legs tensed up and his balls tightened. Rico brushed his nose against Sonny’s nose, and bonked their foreheads together, breaking the kiss with a soft popping suction. He looked Sonny in the eye, just for a split second longer than he probably should have, and then looked down at his erection, bobbing excitedly between them, sliding in and out of Sonny’s hand. 

He came explosively, cum splattering both their chests, running over the head of his cock and Sonny’s hand. The sight of it sent Sonny over the edge, and he thrust wildly, arhythmically, all control lost, into Rico until the cascade of contractions left him a gasping, moaning mess, arms wrapped around Rico’s shoulders. 

He kissed him on the cheek, lips pressed into fuzz. Rico kissed him back, a peck on the edge of his chin. Sonny felt like his limbs were made of overcooked linguini. 

They met nose to nose again, words not within grasp of their current mental faculties. Sonny brushed his lips to Rico’s lips, and Rico’s tongue flicked across the space between them. He tilted his head to the side and let him in. 

Kissing Rico like this— after they were both already spent— was dumb. It peeled away the edges of his stated excuse for everything they were doing. If he wasn’t sleeping with his friend because of raw, brainless lust, then… why  _ was _ he doing it? 

Even so, they stayed together for a moment longer. He sucked Rico’s bottom lip into his mouth, and Rico’s hands were in his hair again, and his softening cock made a valiant but futile attempt to be excited once more. Noses smashed together, hands all over each other, sticky and exhausted, they made out like kids in the back row of a drive-in.

It was glorious. 

It felt like love.

It scared the shit out of him.

He had tried to wean himself from their arrangement before, and it hadn’t worked. If he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life pining miserably over his best friend, this time, he was going to have to find a way to go cold turkey. But he didn’t know how. Short of a sudden need to be strictly monogamous with another partner— and it’s not like his luck with women had been great these past few years— he couldn’t think of a lot of excuses that wouldn’t either be hurtful or suspicious or both.

He just wanted to not want him. 

But he  _ did _ want him, and pain and joy warred in his chest as they kissed. If he hadn’t been so distraught about having to pull away, he might almost have been thankful when a concussive series of clanks and crashes interrupted them. 

They both turned in the direction of the noise.

“Sounds like Sonny Jr. might be making a jailbreak,” Rico grinned, a hint of scratchiness still in his voice. 

“I’m finding ‘Little Orange Bastard’ more accurate than Sonny Jr.,” Sonny sighed, leaning back slightly on his non-slimy hand. He held the base of the condom as Rico lifted himself up off him, tied it, and tossed it in the bin. He was exhausted, scared of what he was feeling, and deeply irritated by the cat, but the sensation of Rico’s ass sliding up his cock still briefly made him think—  _ fuck it, round two _ .

Legs still jellied, he hobbled into the bathroom, rinsed his hands, and grabbed a towel. On the way back in, he tossed the towel at Rico and grabbed his underwear from the floor. Sonny was always slightly embarrassed after they fucked, especially when they got hot and heavy like they had tonight. The ridiculousness of the whole situation was always very apparent when one was digging for one’s jockeys under a pile of men’s suit jackets. Like whoever had been going at it on Sonny’s undersized bed two minutes ago was someone else entirely. 

He assumed that Rico was always able to look him in the eye afterwards because for him, it was just a way to blow off steam. 

“Toss me my drawers?”

Hopping one leg into his own briefs, he swept Rico’s up from the floor and over the bed.

Half-clothed, they went to check on the cat. 

Little Orange Bastard had somehow managed to pull down the shower curtain and knock a few bottles off the counter and into the floor, and was sitting in the dry shower basin yowling. 

Rico leaned over Sonny’s shoulder, surveying the carnage. “You wanna bring him to Gina’s  _ tonight _ ?” 

“Y’know, somehow the two of us showing up unannounced at this hour with a surprise animal sounds a hell of a lot less cute than my original plan,” Sonny sighed. He reached down and grabbed Little Orange Bastard, who stopped screaming immediately. He gathered the kitten to his chest, wishing he had put his undershirt back on like Rico had. “Shit.” He sighed again. “We’re no good at this.” With his free hand he started picking up the bottles on the floor. “I don’t know kittens, but if he were a puppy, then I’d think our little natural disaster here might not like being left alone.”

Rico began the process of relooping the shower rings on the bar. “Makes sense, if he’s never been away from his brothers and sisters before.” He hoisted the bar up and Sonny helped lock it back into place. “And you  _ did _ call him a little clingy bastard.” 

“Guess I’ll move the food and litterbox to the bedroom,” Sonny decided, defeated by a three pound nemesis. He looked Little Orange Bastard in the eye and threatened, “If you pee on anything, you’re gonna be breakfast for Elvis, got that buster?” The kitten allowed himself to be manhandled, apparently content so long as someone was paying attention to him. 

As they were relocating everything, kitten still in hand, Sonny noticed Rico glancing down at his left wrist and frowning, apparently forgetting he was only wearing an undershirt and skivvies and not a watch. 

“You got somewhere to be?” 

Rico glanced up from where he was moving the junk off the useless kitten-containing fence they had made. “What?”

“You just looked at where your watch should be.”

“No,” he snorted. “I’m just kinda hungry.”

Sonny grimaced. There were some all-night places still open, but he didn’t particularly feel like putting pants back on. His cupboard was, as usual, largely bare of anything Rico-safe. 

“Uh…” He stalled, opening a cabinet. “I have… canned beans. And…” He shifted to the freezer, hoping maybe to catch a glimpse of a frost-bitten vegetable. “An ice pack.”

“All the dietary staples,” Rico muttered, flashing an annoyed smirk. 

“Hey, we got cat food.”

“I’ll pass.”

Sonny sighed. “Want me to go pick something up?”

“Nah, it’s fine.” He scaled the stairs and put the tackle box back out on the deck, and then immediately closed the hatch behind him. 

“Seriously, I can go get something.”

“I don’t want to leave the cat,” Rico evaded. 

“Wait!” Sonny stopped short before picking up a box of books. “Hold on.” He grabbed the bread box from on top of the fridge. “Tajo, uh, from the cafe near 8th Ave—” He opened the box and presented its innards to Rico. “—he was gonna toss these yesterday and asked if I wanted them. I meant to bring them to the station today.”

Rico raised his eyebrows appraisingly. “Hey, stale pastelitos are better than  _ an ice pack _ .” He reached for a slightly dented guayaba y queso pastry. Sonny took one he thought might be pineapple. 

Little Orange Bastard yowled at their feet. 

“You don’t want this,” Sonny assured, cracking a corner off his pastelito and stuffing it into his mouth. 

His continued screaming seemed to indicate that Sonny didn’t know what he was talking about. 

“Here,” Rico offered, pinching off a bite that only had cheese and no guava. He knelt down and hovered it in front of Little Orange Bastard’s face. Softly, almost musically, he soothed, “You can stop crying, right baby?” 

The kitten took the bite gladly and did, in fact, stop mewling. 

Sonny shoved almost half his pastry in his mouth to disguise his uncontrollable smile. Rico caught him anyway, those grey eyes landing squarely on his face. His cheek dimpled in return. Sonny couldn’t tell if it was affectionate or teasing— mocking— did he think it was cute that his behavior made Sonny blush? Or did he think he was pathetic? 

Quietly, they nibbled the edges of their stale snacks, the kitten circling their ankles. The sticky sweetness of the pineapple, framed by less-than-flaky pastry, became a dry mass in Sonny’s mouth as he chewed. It wasn’t that stale— Rico seemed to be eating his without issue— but Sonny just couldn’t seem to produce enough saliva to swallow. The morass of pastry seemed heavily disinclined to make its way past the equally sticky morass of feelings in his throat. 

What he wanted, more than anything, was for this to be real. For Rico to call him ‘partner,’ and to have it mean every bit of its subtext. To have as strong a hold on Ricardo Tubbs’ heart as  _ he _ had on one Sonny Crockett’s. Barring that, he was going to have to call things off, probably sooner than later.

But how could he ask for an ending to the one thing he wanted most?

The kitten returned to yowling before Sonny could come to any kind of answer. A welcome distraction. 

“Are they supposed to cry all the time?” Sonny looked at Little Orange Bastard askew, swallowing despite his body’s protestations. 

“I think he just wants more cheese,” Rico shrugged. He held the last bite of his pastelito out to the right, and the kitten’s eyes followed. Moving it over to the left, the kitten took a tentative step in that direction, the tip of his tail flicking. 

“Clingy  _ and _ a glutton. It’s like I’m giving Gina a shitty boyfriend.” 

Rico popped the last bite of his snack—  _ dinner? _ Sonny considered, guiltily— in his mouth and very gently touched Little Orange Bastard’s chest with the tips of his toes. “You’ll never pretend to be some tough guy with commitment issues, though, will you, Sonny Jr.?” 

“Oh, low blow, man,” Sonny spat, his whole face going red. “Whatever the hell Gina told you, she…” He paused, biting his lip and his words. “She… she was… probably telling the truth. Hell, she was probably  _ downplaying _ however much of an asshole I was.” 

The face Rico made— head titled just a degree to the left, one eyebrow barely arched, lips ever so slightly pursed— was totally unreadable. He looked at Sonny like that for longer than was comfortable, then both his eyebrows shot up, he closed his eyes, and his mouth scrunched up to one side.

“Gina’s nicer than I am,” he shrugged, smiling with some hidden joke just behind his lips. 

If Sonny had really let himself think about it, he would have realized that was not a coherent response to his own statement. There were words left unspoken that Sonny was too busy being uncomfortable and embarrassed to hear.

Wanting to regain the upper hand— had he ever had the upper hand?— he jumped right to barbs. “Yeah, no shit. That’s why she’s getting a kitten, and you get the pleasure of eating stale bread in your underthings with me.” 

“Sonny, I…” Rico broke into a vaguely despondent but high-pitched laugh, like Sonny was an annoying child who had managed to drive a harried babysitter into outright madness. He sighed deeply, blinked rapidly, and then beckoned with one open hand. “Gimme another one. Coconut, if there are any.” 

He obliged, although he found the entire exchange strangely off-putting. It wasn’t the first time Rico had gotten kind of vague and abrupt after sex. He probably wanted to leave, but couldn’t figure out how to recuse himself without feeling like a jerk. It’s not like Sonny would have held it against him. He knew the point of all this was just to get off. 

But despite his momentary shortness, he didn’t leave. They polished off a pair of slightly deflated oranges, a handful of pistachios, and the last beer in a six pack together, and went to bed. Sonny gave the cat another stern warning about sleeping and not urinating on things, and they slid drowsily beneath Sonny’s sheets. 

Back to back, they both started laughing every time Little Orange Bastard meowed. 

It was a long time before they got to sleep. 

Around five thirty, Sonny roused back to wakefulness. Rico’s arm was around his waist, front-to-back, their legs together, hooked at the ankles. He could feel Rico breathing against the back of his neck, his nose in Sonny’s hair. The kitten, goddamn it, the god damned cat was on the bed in front of him, asleep in a softly breathing orange ball. 

Sonny’s stomach clenched. His shoulders tensed, and his palms went clammy. 

He slunk out from under Rico’s arm and grabbed the cat under its ribs, depositing it on the floor. As he extricated himself from the sheets, Rico’s eyes half opened.

_ Goddamnit.  _

“Y’okay?” He slurred, blinking heavily.

“Yeah,” Sonny lied, swallowing, “just heard a noise and wanna,” he swallowed again, grabbing a pair of shorts, “make sure Elvis isn’t eating anyone.” 

Rico nodded, one eye open, one eye closed. He didn’t look totally convinced, but he didn’t get up, either. 

Sonny pulled his shorts on on his way out of the bedroom, and bolted up the stairs, through the hatch, and onto the deck. In the humid still-dark air, he grasped the railing, clammy as his hands, and leaned forward, trying to make his stomach stop rolling, trying to make his hands stop shaking. He breathed in fast and shallow, the space beneath his ribs spasming. He felt like he wanted to cry, but no tears came, and he felt like he might throw up, but that didn’t happen, either. He just stood, breathing, shaking, white-knuckle-gripping the rail, for god knows how long. 

When the trembling finally stopped, and his lungs finally decided to accept oxygen again, he broke out into a full body sweat. 

This couldn’t keep happening.

He couldn’t keep waking up with his best friend draped over him like they were goddamn newlyweds. 

It was too much. 

It was too hard. 

He smashed one of his hands against the railing, like anything good was going to come from bruised fingers. He tried to come up with something, anything he could say to his partner that might give him the space he needed to forget how he felt, but everything that came to mind may as well have been an admission of love. If he said he just wasn’t interested anymore, Rico might be hurt. If he said he needed space, there was no way he wouldn’t question what that meant. 

He could tell him the truth, but Rico would never look at him the same again. 

He loved him too much to ruin their friendship like that.

Sonny gasped, gulping in air, almost wishing he could just cry. God, he just felt so  _ stuck _ .

Because he loved Rico too much to just let go, either. 

Across the sea, the sun was rising. Sonny’s hands felt like ice, and his stomach felt like molten lead. His throat and his chest were tight and dry and scratchy and he was terrified of going back inside. Of facing Rico. Of facing himself.

God, he loved him. 

He loved him. 

And he hated himself. 

  
  
  


  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> "Hey why would you do this and specifically why would you illustrate the one super cute part of a fic that otherwise ends with Sonny having a full blown panic attack over the fact that he's bisexual and hates himself for it?"
> 
> Because two episodes from this one, Tubbs will tell Crockett that he loves him on screen, and then three episodes after that, Crockett will propose to and marry a women he has known for approximately 48 hours, and if that doesn't indicate that he spends the first quarter of season 4 in the midst of a heavy duty gay crisis, I'm really not sure what does. Sonny needs a queer therapy group like most people need oxygen, and being a Vice fan is suffering. The cute illustration is just SALT IN THE WOOOOOUND
> 
> UPDATE: Wanna yell at me for being a jerk, and/or cry together, and/or berate me for any typos? Please feel free to come talk on the [Miami Vice Discord Server](https://discord.gg/79mQP7DmUd)!


End file.
